Chapter 14

THE WILD HUNT

The moon had risen high, casting its light upon the mountain. Mandy stood beside the house with Constance, holding her cold, dry hand and watching the golden sickle in the sky.

“I want to stay here forever, Constance.”

“Yes.” There was shyness in her tone. Despite the march of years she had much still of youth in her “But you must be certain Would you give your life for it?”

Mandy raised her eyebrows, regarded Constance. “I’ve teamed to be suspicious of questions like that.”

“Well, no need to answer just this instant. You’ve been given a reprieve The ravens are announcing a visitor.”

Mandy heard their gleeful blaring babble of half-aware voices. She could detect the pleasure and excitement in their tone. “They know the visitor. Somebody they’re glad to see.

“Very good, dear. You’re learning how to listen to them.”

“Just the tone. Not the words.”

“The two are one and the same among birds. If you’re careful, you’ll hear the celebration in their greeting.” She smiled. “Ravens only celebrate one thing, and that is food. So we will find that our visitor is feeding them as he comes up the road.”

“He?”

“The female’s voices are sharpest. It’s a he.”

They went back inside and down the long central hall to the front of the house. Ivy had not yet lit the candles. That wouldn’t occur until the moon cleared the trees. “It’s nice to do things that remind us this old planet rolls,” Ivy had said. “It’s going somewhere, and we’re going there, too.”

Rise of moon, setting of sun, tumble of stars, all were noticed on the Collier estate.

A man in hat, down jacket, and snow boots was just mounting the final rise to the house. As he walked, he tossed bits of something to the darting, gleeful birds.

Mandy was no longer so desolate about the work they had destroyed. One glimpse of the Leannan had made her past efforts seem callow, at least the efforts at fairies. Their destruction was a grace; she would not have been able to bear them now.

“Well, look who it is. Ivy! Robin! Your father’s come for a visit.”

As she and Constance watched him making his way up the walk in his cloud of ravens, Mandy heard a rattle of footsteps from the house. A moment later Robin and Ivy burst past them and met him at the steps. With a cry of happiness Ivy threw herself into his arms. “Dad!”

“Hey, baby! Hiya, Bill.”

“Their outside names are Margaret and Bill,” Constance commented. She offered no further explanation as their father stomped the snow off his boots on the wide front porch.

“Lord, Connie, why don’t you get somebody in to plow that road? Tumbuli’d do it for a hundred bucks.”

“Hello, Steven. Come on in and dry your boots by the fire. We’ve got some hot mulled wine.”

He tramped through the door rubbing his hands. “Nobody mulls wine like you people,” he rumbled.

Mandy was fascinated. Robin had talked about the danger of outsiders learning too much, but here was one outsider who seemed familiar enough with them.

Ivy soon brought wine in steaming mugs. “Oh, that is good,” Steven said, leaning into the warmth. His face, reflecting the firelight, communicated strength and gentleness. His eyes were set in tangled brows, but the way they twinkled suggested that he did not take the witches quite as seriously as they themselves did. He seemed so at peace, so accepting. She could understand why he was trusted here.

“Snow in October! We had three inches down in the town.” He looked askance at Constance. “Sure is unusual, snow in October. I wonder if she was as surprised as we were.” He chuckled. “It is beautiful, though, the white against the autumn colors.”

“It’ll melt.”

“Good! I can get my compost finished. Say, she didn’t tell you when, did she?”

Constance risked. “That is no business of the Episcopalians.”

“Hell, Connie, I’m not just a church deacon. I’m also a gardener. I need to know. And you got my kids, you old witch. I think I’m entitled to a few favors.”

“Steven, I’d like you to meet Amanda Walker. She’s going to be with us from now on. Amanda, this is Steven Cross. He’s my neighbor across the road.”

Mandy smiled. She knew the name Cross, of course. It was one of the old Maywell names. There had been Crosses in the Founder’s Excursion in 1702. Mother Star of the Sea had drilled that into their heads in History, along with the equally important fact that two of the founding families, the Stemleighs and the Albarts, were Roman Catholic.

“My Lord, you do get the pretty ones.” His big hand lingered in her own. Then he turned his eyes on Constance once again. “I thought I’d better come up.” His voice lowered. “Something happened last night.” He cast a significant glance in Mandy’s direction. “Pretty serious.”

“She can hear. She’s going to team it all.”

His eyebrows shot up. “You mean she’s the new—”

“That’s right. But don’t congratulate her yet, she only just survived the first challenge. Now, why did you come? What’s happened?”

“About midnight last night I noticed a lot of traffic out on Bridge Road. I went down the front walk and took a look. There was a regular procession, Connie.”

“Who?”

“Brother Pierce has gotten wind of something.”

“Maybe he’s managed to slip a spy into one of the town covens. I wouldn’t be surprised. That’s the way it usually happened in the old days.”

“I hope none of the ones who use our facilities.”

“I doubt it. The covens that meet at Saint George’s have been going for years.”

“How about Leonora Brown’s group—”

“The Priestess Quest. She is rather new at it. Have you met any of her coven?”

“The rector says it’s a good group.”

“And your Charlie knows people. No, I don’t think my problem is there. I’d be more inclined to nose about the Kominski group. She’s got three covens now. 1 cautioned her about growing too fast.”

Steven smiled. “You folks sell ecstasy. That’s a hard thing to beat in this day and age. People want to join, Connie. I don’t think you realize how much you’re affecting me life of Maywell. Far more than you did even five years ago.”

“I realize it. Never assume I don’t know what I’m doing. And my people can keep their secrets.”

He tucked his chin into his chest. His eyes were no longer twinkling. “Please forgive me, but I beg to differ. Not only Brother Pierce but everybody else in town knows there’s some kind of a big do on tonight.”

“Of course. They have to know.”

He rocked back with surprise. “What? Oh, Connie, come on!”

“The essence of the ritual is danger. If it wasn’t dangerous it wouldn’t work. To be real, magic must be serious. We aren’t playing games here.”

Mandy listened with the utmost care. She believed these words.

Cross’s voice rose as he spoke. “Connie, I don’t think you understand what your people are doing. They’re recruiting all over town, even in the churches. Even from Pierce.”

“They aren’t recruiting. We don’t recruit. Witches are rare. It takes a very special person to become a witch.”

He shook his head. “Whatever, you’re going public. Connie, you people are way out in never-never land and this is a very conservative little town.”

“There’s a long tradition of toleration here in Maywell.”

“Maywell is a Christian community, of course it’s tolerant. Except for Pierce, that is. And he is far from tolerant.” Steven stopped, looked a long time at the floor. Finally he spoke again. “You’re in danger. All of you. This business of public rituals is highly irresponsible. And the recruitment—”

“We do not recruit!”

“Whatever it is! It’s going to get you in trouble, mark my words. You’ve got families breaking up over this thing. Let me tell you how Maywell thinks of you. The tolerant ones—us, the Catholics, most of the established churches—still figure live and let live, but the more noise you make the more uneasy we get.

As for Brother Pierce’s followers, watch out. They’re running around with torches in the night, my dear.”

Connie smiled softly. “We have to do what we do and be what we are. Nobody really has a choice in such matters. If it means that we lose the toleration of the town, then that’s what must be. But we love you and respect you. Carry that message to your congregation, Steven. Wilt you do that?”

“You know I’ll do what I can. But my strong sense of it is that things are about to get out of hand. Puti back for a while.”

“I’m sorry, Steven.”

He drank deeply of his wine. “What’s in this mull, anyway?”

“Stool of toad, leg of worm.”

“Thank you. I’ll have to write that down. There was more than a procession out there last night. There’s a big burned place on the wall about a hundred yards from the gate, back toward town.”

Constance’s eyes narrowed. “A burned place?”

“The grass is scorched, the wall is covered with soot, and the overhanging branches are blackened.

Somebody’s awful mad at you, Connie.”

Constance’s eyes twinkled. “Pierce, of course.”

“Probably. But you’ve got plenty of enemies besides him. Could be some husband whose wife has moved to your village. Could be a whole group of ‘em.”

“There are only two families affected by the village in that way. And one of the husbands is about to come around. The other is too obsessed with his work to bother about us.”

“Then blame Brother Pierce. From what I hear he’s out to cauterize this place to a cinder. Burn out the witch infection.” He coughed. “This wine is loosening up my chest as well as my tongue. Your darned snowstorm gave me a cold, dear!”

“We don’t affect the weather. That’s just a superstition.”

Steven answered with a deeper hack.

“Ivy, what do you think your father’s cough needs?”

“Well, it’s bronchial, a lot of loose phlegm. Not very serious. I’d say onion broth.”

“Very good. But why are you sure it isn’t serious?”

“There’s no rasp in it, so not much inflammation, and none of the thickness associated with pneumonia.

And it doesn’t have the crack of a tumor cough.”

“See there, Steven. Your daughter is possibly going to be a quite competent herbal doctor. Ivy, give him the recipe.”

“Cut up six small white onions and boil them in a cup of honey. Boil them down for two hours. Strain out the liquid and take it hot, in small doses. You’ll cough a lot at first—”

“I’m sure.”

“Then it’ll stop, Dad. Your cough’ll be cured.”

“I’ll use up my Robitussin first, baby. I love you dearly, but I don’t think Mom’s gonna let me boil down onions in the kitchen.”

Ivy went and sat on the arm of his chair. She stroked what he had left of hair. Robin, sitting on the floor before him, took his mug and refilled it from the pitcher they had left by the fire. Mandy was for a moment conscious of the depth of the love that flowed between this man and his two children. He looked again at Constance. “Please tell me you’re at least going to be careful.”

“Tonight is a bad night for us to be careful.”

There was that suggestion of danger again.

“Don’t go down in the town.”

“We go wherever our ritual leads. The essence of the hunt is danger.”

“You’ve said that! Now, look, if you’re going to be crazy, at least do me one small favor. Tell Sheriff Williams your plan.”

“I did that, of course.” She laughed. “I even had to pay a hoof tax of fifteen cents.”

“I’m glad he knows. I don’t want the poor guy to get a heart attack.”

“Johnny Williams is a good man, Steven. We used to dance together out at Rollo’s Road House.”

“You remember that? When did that place close down—during the war?”

“Before the war. The reason I remember is that Johnny reminds me every time I see him ” There had come into Constance’s face a fey expression. To say she had once been a coquette would not be accurate. She still was one.

On the distance came the single boom of a gong. “The moon hangs two fingers over the mountain,”

Constance said. “We have a lot to do before midnight.”

He slapped his palm against his head. “I’m telling you half of this town is up in arms, Connie, and you propose to go thundering through its streets on horseback at midnight? You must be mad!”

“Half the town may be up in arms, but the other half is mine.”

“Not half, dear. Perhaps a fourth.”

“Many of the others are friends.”

“Oh, come on. You act like you haven’t heard what I said. You make a spectacle of yourself and you’re going to lose the friends you do have.”

Mandy saw something fierce in the look Steven gave Constance, something he himself might not even have been aware of. The gong boomed again.

“I gather that means I have to go.”

“That’s what it means, Steven.”

He got up. “Thanks a heap for the wine. And don’t say I didn’t warn you if you have trouble tonight.” He tromped out, his children trailing behind him. “Your mother sends her love. Her apples are ripe, and she says to tell you she’s going to have thirty bushels. All grown without spells.”

“That’s what she thinks,” Ivy said. “I first spelled the orchard on Beltane Day.”

“I’ll tell her that. I’m sure she’ll throw away her fertilizer.”

“I wish she would. She doesn’t need it. It shocks her trees. They’re getting old before their time.”

“We’ve got a good harvest, too,” Robin added. “Pumpkins and corn and squash and wheat and oats.

And an incredible blackberry crop. We’re going to be making the herbal stuff again.”

There was an awkwardness now between the three of them. “It’ll be a good harvest, then,” Steven said.

“The best,” his son said. A pause grew, spread into a silence.

“Your sisters miss you.” Steven paused at the door. He opened his arms to his son and daughter. “You know,” An instant later he was off into the night. Soon the calls of the ravens began again, diminishing with him as he departed. “Hey! Lay off that hat! I’m outa bread!”

Then he was gone.

Ivy went about with her taper, and soon the house shone with the deep light of the candles. Mandy saw Robin hurrying through the kitchen. The slam of the door made her gasp. She was alert with anticipation.

She understood that she was at the center of this ritual. Naturally she was apprehensive. She told herself that was all it was—apprehension. She would not admit to deep fear, the curdling terror that comes when one faces a true unknown.

“What am I going to do tonight?” she asked Constance.

Her mentor took both of her hands. “You are the huntress, dear.” She wasn’t surprised. “I hope you know how to ride bareback.”

“I couldn’t possibly! I haven’t ridden a horse since I was sixteen.”

“Well, give it a try. You’ll have to go sky-clad, too.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’ll see. Now, come on, the moon doesn’t wait.”

The next thing Mandy knew she was following Constance down the path through the herb garden. The idea of hesitating never crossed her mind.

When they reached the village, they slipped between two of the cottages to find the place most wonderfully transformed from Mandy’s brief visit when she first entered the estate. There were candles everywhere, making pools of light along the snowy paths, gleaming in the windows of the cottages, in the lanterns before the houses, too. Holly decorated all the doors. “You’re to hunt the Holly King tonight, my dear Amanda,” Constance said. “As usual the rules of the game will be simple. Just do your best.”

Here she went again with the vague instructions. Mandy remembered struggling up Stone Mountain, not knowing where the hell she was going. “What if I fall off the horse?” she muttered, knowing there would be no reply.

She was being tested. Very well. She raised her chin.

Fiercely she determined to pass every test they could give her.

Constance stopped in the middle of the village. She looked most wonderful, hooded, her cloak touching the ground. Her face was lit by the candles, and the moon rode high above her. “If at any point you fail, my dear, we burn this village and go home. We quit.”

A stone seemed to knock in her chest. “It’s that important? Me?” Now all of her posturing seemed hollow.

“This is your night, my dear You have taken your place with the Leannan as I took mine fifty years ago.

To further prove yourself, you must capture the Holly King and make him your own. It symbolizes your strength. The Holly King is all of us, our covenstead, our way of life. If you want to lead us, you must first catch us.”

Mandy’s mind was still battling through the possible meanings of what she had just heard when Constance marched up to the doors of the great round building at the head of the town and threw them open.

The room within was an astonishment of light and odor: it appeared to be a combination barn and ritual chamber. Around the walls were stalls full of horses and cattle and goats. Mandy saw fine mounts, their rumps gleaming, their tails beautifully curried. The smell was not unpleasant, just intensely animal. The stalls, though, formed only the outermost circle. The greater part of the space was taken up by a beaten-earth floor, upon which sat perhaps four dozen people—men, women, and children.

In the center of the circle was Robin, his head crowned by holly, his body gleaming as if it had been waxed. He was, as were they all, quite naked. When he smiled at her, she was glad.

A familiar black tail hung down from a rafter, flicking occasionally.

There was a skirl of bagpipes and a rattle of bones. Six couples came into the circle around Robin. A young woman of perhaps eighteen dashed round and round it with an enormous broadsword, pointing it at the ground. The bagpipes wailed wildly. Mandy thought of all the movies she had ever seen of Scotsmen in war, and knew the sense of this magnificent noise. In hands such as held them now, the pipes were an instrument of courage.

Brother Pierce’s face, sharp with hate, seemed to swim before her.

The group in the circle began to dance round their Holly King, clapping and chanting:

She understood it all now. They were going to make her ride a horse through a hostile town in the nude, chasing a guy with weeds in his hair.

She was thinking to get out of here when strong hands suddenly grabbed her and whirled her away among swirling chains of people. They snatched at her cloak until it was swept off, then at her jacket, at her blouse, at her jeans. Soon she was naked above the waist. There was so much laughter that the violence of the undressing was almost dispelled. They lifted her at last over their heads, and in passing her from hand to hand finally got the jeans away from her.

She was shrieking from all those unexpected touches when she found herself delivered to the center of the inmost circle and laid at the feet of the Holly King.

Robin’s eyes were big with desire. She could see, between his crossed legs, his standing flesh.

Close to him there was a strange smell, like mildew and rancid lard and menthol cough drops. A moment later she knew why. He dipped his fingers in a bowl of thick salve and dropped a huge glob of it on her belly.

“Hey!”

They held her arms above her head, put their hands around her ankles. In their faces was such love, though, she made no attempt to escape them.

When Robin began spreading the salve up and down her stomach, she discovered that the touch of his hands could be pleasant. He spread the slick stink over her whole body, leaving only her private parts untouched. She tingled, grew warm. The sensation was not unlike that of Ben Gay, but deeper and not in the least relaxing. On the contrary, she wanted to run and jump and yell; she fairly could have flown.

The young woman who had wielded the sword came and knelt beside Mandy. “There’s a little sting,” she whispered. “Don’t mind, it soon ends.” She took some of the salve and nibbed it smartly into Mandy’s privates.

A little sting! It was all she could do not to shriek with the agony of it. As if anticipating her problem the bagpipes wailed again and the bones were joined by drums.

No wonder there were legends of witches flying. This salve made her feel as if she were floating. More than floating. If she closed her eyes, she just might sweep up into the rafters with Tom.

They got her to her feet and danced her about, clapping, turning, twisting to a new music. The pipes were gone now, replaced by flute and drum and bone, the old instruments of such dances, softer perhaps without the roaring pipes but in their way just as exciting.

Happiness filled Mandy Walker. The hell with her concerns, this was fun. She really danced for the first time in her life, naked and free amid the smells of animals and the sweat of people—and her own phenomenal stench—round and round and round till the rafters garlanded with holly spun and the Holly King on his throne of floor spun, with his smiling lips and dark wonderful eyes, the gleam there so intense it made her burst with laughter.

There was the feeling that she had danced this dance before.

Just then the dance stopped. Annoyance flashed through Mandy. Then she heard what had frozen the others. From far away the long sound of a horn. A hunter’s hom.

Constance. She was out there somewhere, calling them to the hunt.

The stillness was only momentary. There followed a great roar of excitement. Mandy found herself astride a huge black horse, a snorting, excited, stamping giant of a stallion.

She was naked. She had only the mane for reins. Then they had drawn her through the doors, so quickly that she almost hit her head.

“I’ve got to have my cloak!”

Somebody gave the horse a swat and like blazes they were off through the middle of the village, the hoofs of her mount shattering candles as he galloped. In another instant they were out in the night, pounding along, her fingers frantic in his mane, her body slipping and sliding around because of the salve, the horsehair skinning her legs. And, she felt sure, they were heading toward the bog.

“Whoa! Hey, horse, come on! Oh, stop!” She tugged at the mane. The animal gave a snort and thundered on.

All she could do was clutch and hope. Maybe she would only be knocked out when she fell. Not killed.

Please not killed at such a prime moment.

The salve was having a more and more powerful effect on her. For example, she wasn’t in the least cold.

And she could hardly feel the pain of the horsehair against her thighs. Even while she clutched and cried, the swiftness of the animal’s flight began to seem less a terror.

It became exhilarating, scary in the same sense that a roller coaster is scary She put one hand along the beast’s pumping neck. It was a lovely creature, this horse.

It snorted.

“Take it easy, horse.”

She felt beneath her its muscles surging, its blood singing in its veins, its sweat mingling with her slickness as they pounded down the night.

She found that she could sit up for a few seconds and, while she did, actually enjoy the wind rushing past her face.

Then she could sit up longer. She could press her knees against the horse’s flanks and sit straight.

It was more than good, this ride. She tossed her head and dug in her knees and shrieked out all the joy and wildness and power that had sprung up in her soul. And her mount neighed reply. She heard the maleness in his voice and knew he had responded to something in her own that she had never before known was there. She was a woman upon this creature, no passive cipher but a woman full of strength and pride and beauty.

She felt an intimacy with the animal flesh beneath her so raw that it startled her. He neighed again, a rich, delighted sound, and literally burst forward. They pounded, pounded, pounded, his foam flying back in her face, his smell filling her nostrils when the charged air didn’t, pounded and pounded but were not spent, never that, never tired, only growing stronger and stronger together as they hunted down the night itself.

Hunted, yes! She was here to hunt Robin. She tossed her head and screamed again, screamed from the bottom of her belly to the top of her head, a high, slicing sword of a cry.

Far off she heard the huntsman’s horn reply. Far, far off to the north.

She had not even to say whoa this time, nor to touch the mane of her horse. Only transfer the pressure from the knees to the ankles and he dropped back to a trot. Lighter pressure made him walk. Raising her legs altogether made him stop.

The horn pealed out once more. Behind her, wasn’t it? Her horse turned his head back, met her eyes in the moonlight with one of his own. He was blowing hard, slick with froth, trembling with eagerness.

This was no ordinary horse. He knew where to go, she felt it. He knew how to find the Holly King. All she had to do was surrender to his simpler, clearer mind and his instincts.

For all she knew no horse was ordinary. Maybe there was no such thing as an ordinary horse or an ordinary ferret or an ordinary duck, for that matter, no more than there were ordinary fairies or ordinary people or ordinary cats.

She gave him knee and they were off again, rushing around the edge of the bog, up through the hummocks with the house gleaming in the distance, farther north in the valley than she had ever been, through acres and acres of fields, some smelling cut and rich with the blood of the land, others still ripening, corn and gram and pumpkins and squash, earth weighted with fruit. She wondered if the snow had destroyed much of the crop.

They trotted down a path between sentinel rows of corn, which clattered with their passing. Now the land began to rise and they went through an orchard, the horse’s hoofs crunching the culls and adding cider to the thick, delicious chaos of scents.

“Holly,” she whispered, “King of Holly…”

No, still farther north. Low in the sky she saw Polaris, hanging above the dark mystery of the land. That way lay the Holly King.

But how far? They were passing houses now, with electric lights and dogs reduced to hoarse yapping by the bizarre sight and even more fantastic odor of the intruders.

They approached a house lit by candles, which were quickly snuffed out. People came bursting out of the door, running after her, cloaked against the cold, racing up and touching her legs with a slap, then dropping back into the dark.

Her mount’s hoofs clattered on the brick streets, echoing in the stillness. She was acutely aware of her nakedness.

Then a car gunned its motor and shot forward. She was impaled by the lights; she heard a powerful engine crying out the rage of the driver as the lights bore down. She dug her knees into her horse’s thighs and pulled his mane sharply right. He burst into a gallop, climbing a steep lawn. The car followed, engine growling and tires screaming, then whining as it came to a stop at the curb.

She shrieked as her horse leaped back fences, stormed through porches, and jumped empty swimming pools. Then they were in an alley, then through it to the next street. Perhaps there had been a cordon arranged for them, but they were out of it now. She was glad, she felt the wildness again, the freedom, the sheer mad, sweating, gasping thunder of the ride.

And she knew she was closer to the Holly King. By long habit she wanted men, and waited for them.

Never before had she allowed herself the feeling of just taking what she wanted.

They went past Church Row and across the town common beyond. “Find him,” she whispered to her mount. “Find him for me!”

Behind them other cars were muttering and growling, their lights prowling the streets that surrounded the common.

Then she saw the blazing sign of Brother Pierce’s Tabernacle. People were running in and out, cars were coming and going—the place was like a wasp nest disturbed by a stick. She knew, at the same moment, that he was close by.

Her horse stopped. “Come on.” She pressed with her knees. He turned his head and looked at her. “So this is the place,” she murmured.

She dismounted, stood a moment on shaky legs, getting used to the ground again. Snow crunched beneath her feet. The salve was not so strong now; she felt how icy cold this night really was. Half a block from the Tabernacle there was another candlelit house. More witches. But he was not in that house. No, he was outside. They were to meet in the night.

He was a clever boy, to go so close to Brother Pierce’s Tabernacle. Clever boy. But she wasn’t afraid of anything anymore, not even this.

She would have ridden right down the aisle of the Tabernacle if necessary. Maybe it was the ride or the salve or being naked in the streets, but she was very excited. She had never wanted anyone like she wanted the Holly King.

Her horse turned its head, pricked its ears toward a sound behind them.

And did not even have a chance to scream when the blast of a shotgun shattered its brains. The great body shuddered and collapsed. “Okay, whore, put your hands up!”

She started to run.

“Stop!”

The hell with that. She had darkness on her side at least. She ran. A shot thundered behind her and something hissed past her right shoulder. Buckshot. Keep going.

“I got the damn horse!”

My horse, my horse, my beautiful magic friend of a horse!

“She’s headin’ toward North Street!”

“Get her, man!”

She flew, forcing herself not to shriek the cry that came to her throat. There would be time for rage later.

My horse!

In their thirty minutes together she and that stallion had become friends in passion, fellow celebrants of gender.

A flash of white ahead of her, a stifled cry, and she realized she had flushed the Holly King! Her beautiful horse had been taking her right to his hiding place.

When he sprinted across North Street, she saw him clear in the streetlight, his skin pale, his long legs pumping, his holly on his head.

Others saw him, too. Car lights flared and engines roared from both ends of the street. By the time Mandy was crossing there were only seconds to spare. Then brakes squealed and furious voices were all shouting together, “It’s the witch, it’s the witch!”

Behind her she heard clumsy crashing in the shrubs. She knew she was back on estate land, beyond the far limit of Maywell. North Street, where the estate’s wall ended, was also the border of the town. Here were the ruins of Willowbrook, an unfinished housing development that had been started and died after Mandy had left Maywell.

She stopped on an overgrown street to listen for the Holly King. The crashing behind her got closer only slowly, accompanied by a steady smoke of curses. Then, just as she was certain she had lost him, a shrub moved almost at her feet.

Instantly she pounced—and connected with his hot skin and pricking crown. She ripped it from his head and tossed it high in the air. He gasped, started to run again, but she grabbed his wrist and screamed out her triumph with all her victorious soul, uncaring of the people behind her, even of the flashlight beams that were probing for her position.

He pushed at her, he tried to break her grip. Her blood was so high that she raised her fist and slammed it across his face. He made a long, rattling groan and sank down.

“Oh, God, I killed him!”

But no, he was crawling. It was another trick! She leaped at him, grabbed him around the waist, straddled him, sat on him, pinned him to the ground.

And felt, to her infinite delight, his bursting rigid essence jamming up between her legs.

A flashlight beam skimmed her head and there was a brutal shout of triumph.

She could not move for the spear of pleasure he had thrust into her. “We’ve got to run,” she whispered, but she simply sat there, staring down at his blood-running face, feeling him in her, and knowing joy so extreme that it almost made her lose her senses.

Then she heard ravens. And yells, frantic yells. The flashlight beams began to flail about in the sky to a great roar of the most fierce cawing Mandy had ever heard. The cacophony retreated rapidly toward the Tabernacle.

When the Holly King was spent beneath her, she got up, put his crown on her own head, and found herself surrounded by other witches, all gasping from their long run. They were wearing ordinary clothing, caps, jackets, hiking boots. Apparently only the principals in the rituals were expected to go naked in the town.

Without a word they clustered about her, tied her cloak around her, and gave her a sweet, delicious dnnk of hot wine and honey.

She walked with them all the way around the western edge of the town and beneath the cliffs of Stone Mountain, back to the estate. Gentle hands carried her lover.

She sat in the center of the circle. They laid him, quite asleep, before her.

Her people then indulged in the revels of the night. There was so little she understood of their rituals, except that the bodies flashing about her in the circle meant ecstasy.

There were twelve of them, six men and six women, dancing about the inner circle of which she and the Holly King were the center. They moved to the right, dancing and clapping, chanting a single word: Moom, Moom, Moom, Moom.

They shouted, they whispered, they danced until the chant merged and changed and grew into another word, which she at first could not quite understand:

Moomamaamannamuaman adamoom amandoom.

Then she heard it—her own name. Amanda. She listened to it weaving about in the chant, and watched the sweat-slick nakedness of the people dancing in her honor, and wondered. Whom do they take me for? Who am I?